ECJ court opinion says directive requires 100% pension compensation
13 July
2006
Commenting on the opinion of the Advocate General in European
Court of Justice (ECJ) in the landmark case brought against the UK
Government by the unions Amicus and Community on behalf of around
1,000 members of both unions formerly employed by Allied Steel and
Wire (ASW) who lost their expected pensions when the company went
into insolvency in 2002, a spokesperson for both unions said: "We
are delighted that the Advocate General has said that Article 8 of
the Insolvency Directive is clear and means what we have already
said, ASW pension scheme members should have had 100% of the their
expected pension benefits protected. The fact that this did not
happen clearly shows that successive UK Governments failed to
properly implement the Directive.
"The Advocate General also
commented on whether the breach of the Directive was sufficiently
serious to warrant compensation, but agreed that this is a matter
for the UK High Court. Given all the evidence that we have- which
was not presented to the ECJ - that the UK Government was aware of
what the Directive required and yet they failed to do we believe
the High Court will find in our favour.
"Despite paying into a pension scheme for over 30 years in
some cases, the sad fact is that many of the ASW pension scheme
members have had to endure hardship and suffering through no fault
of their own. Tragically some of our members have even died without
knowing whether their loved ones will have enough money to live on,
we believe that the Government should end their misery now."
Amicus have issued approximately 2000 other cases in the UK
and it is unclear as to how these cases will fair. Amicus say we
will await the full judgement for more clarity on the position. On
the temporal limitation the AG opinion does not mention this at
all.
The case challenges the UK Governments' past and present,
failure to implement a 1980 European directive, which should have
been in place by 1983. The directive requires member states to take
measures to protect the pensions of employees in the event of their
employer's insolvency.
Ends
Notes for
Editors:
For further information
call: Brian Gallagher, Amicus on 07957 995 947 or 02074208993, Ken
Penton, on 07764 570 51
